The New Republic

The New Republic

The Nuclear Industry’s Winners and Losers

As Donald Trump plays chicken with North Korea, it's worth remembering that this is also a business. Some profit; others suffer.

Demonstrators protest a French nuclear test in the South Pacific Murura Atoll in French Polynesia in September 1995. (Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

Whom do nuclear weapons protect? The answer, we are taught, is obvious. Conventional
wisdom insists that atom bombs are the vile but necessary weapon protecting the
nation-state and its citizenry from the biggest global threats. J. Robert
Oppenheimer, the American physicist responsible for designing the first nuclear
weapon, likened his
creation to the “turn of the screw,” a product of modern warfare that,
paradoxically, “made the prospect of future war unendurable.” The atom bomb is
so good and so efficient at killing, a country wouldn’t even dare start a fight
with an adversary who possesses one. And so, the logic goes, the fear of unimaginable
devastation serves as the ultimate protection for the people.

Today, nuclear weapons are having a renaissance, again confronting news
consumers with their duality as harbingers of destruction and champions of
national security. In a letter
detailing his decision to cancel a much-anticipated meeting with North Korean
leader Kim Jong-Un, U.S. President Trump reminded Jong-un of America’s enduring
nuclear might: “You talk about nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive
and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.” This is more
than boastful rhetoric; the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review has called for additional investments for nuclear
weapons to ensure that the arsenal remains powerful and effective. Presumably,
this should be comforting to American ears. Yet it also sounds like a
blustering invitation for trouble.

The American government’s renewed focus on nuclear weapons raises, again, the
question taken up by protesters of the 1960s and 70s: of exactly who these weapons protect. Pomp and patriotism can obscure
a more specific cast of characters—some who immensely benefit while others
unjustly suffer from the nuclear weapons enterprise.

What would a conversation about nuclear
weapons look like if we demanded recognition for those harmed by its production
process?

Nukes don’t grow on trees—there
are, of course, nuclear weapon makers. While it is impossible to ascertain the
exact costs of development, maintenance, and upgrades (referred to as
“modernization” in nuclear policy circles) since such accounting is not closely recorded, the United States unveiled plans to spend $1.7 trillion in the next 30 years to improve and sustain
its nuclear forces. A share of these funds will go towards government agencies
such as the Department of Defense, but also an intricate web of private companies
tasked to assist in the production process. The Don’t Bank on the Bomb Report, a recent study that maps out the private sector involved
in atomic bomb-making, calls out 20 companies that help maintain the nuclear weapons
programs of four countries: France, India, the United Kingdom, and the United
States (other countries, such as China and Russia, are not covered since their
weapons programs are government owned and controlled). In the United States, contracted
companies can make profits of $15 million to $60 million a year.

This venture is dangerous in more ways than one: companies running U.S. nuclear
weapons laboratories, including Sandia Corp. (a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin)
and Bechtel National among others, were found to have committed egregious
safety violations and inadequate training that encouraged workers to circumvent
proper procedures. Despite such infractions, the wheels of the military-industrial
complex continue to turn. Companies with safety lapses are still considered top
contenders to oversee future projects, thus benefiting from the Trump
administration’s trillion-dollar decision to revamp the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

One country’s nuclear force
improvements will naturally propel others into motion: Russia this spring announced its own exorbitant
nuclear force modernization project as a counter to U.S. nuclear buildup, China
recently scaled its
nuclear simulations in an effort to develop next-generation nuclear
weapons, while France and the United
Kingdom are spearheading plans to renew their nuclear submarines despite cost
concerns. In the UK, proponents argue that it is necessary to bolster nuclear
capabilities in the face of an “uncertain security environment,” although it is
also uncertain how the government will shore up funds for a possible £2.9 billion gap
to complete the project—the lionshare
of which will go to four private contractors: AWE Management, BAE Systems, Babcock
International, and Rolls Royce (better known for their luxury cars, the company
supplies
engines for military assets, including the UK’s nuclear submarines).

Left in the wake of this race
to nuclear modernity are people harmed and exploited along the way, grievances
that date decades back to the inception of the bomb itself. In stark contrast to
the romanticized image of military men and scientists tinkering with the bomb in
secret laboratories was dirty, unacknowledged work done by uranium miners
starting in the early twentieth century—from the pits of the Congo, Australia,
and the indigenous lands of Southwest United States—who dug the Earth in horrible
conditions in search for the special ingredient. While mining for weapons is no
longer the norm (nuclear weapon states have since figured out different means,
such as plutonium production, to acquire fissile material for military purposes),
the physical and historical trauma was never sufficiently addressed: health
problems continue to plague the families of miners and those who live around former
mining towns. In the Navajo territory, there are still 500 abandoned uranium mines waiting to be cleaned. These sitting mines continue
to contaminate local water supply, harming
the next generation Navajo.

Making the bomb is half the effort; it also has to be tested to ensure efficacy. Before computer simulations, countries conducted real-time nuclear tests, oftentimes above ground, displacing front-line communities living in selected test sites. A quick study of nuclear weapons testing overtime reveal a disturbing pattern: from the heart of the Saharan Desert to the rugged terrain in Kazakhstan, tests were primarily conducted in former colonies or territories of nuclear weapon states, where the land and livelihood of people were neglected for a greater national cause. Today, some former test sites are facing health hazards and environmental catastrophe. Recent declassified information divulged that French nuclear testing in Polynesia caused significant radioactive fallout in the region, which was not publicly disclosed for almost four decades. And in the Marshall Islands, where the United States detonated more than a hundred tests in a span of 15 years, rising tides due to climate change are threatening to flood nuclear waste sites and former testing grounds. To date, nuclear weapon states have yet to fully compensate victims and address this growing environmental damage. All the while, they are allocating big budgets for their nuclear arsenals to protect vital national interests. Ironically, as nuclear weapon states pursue upgrades to their arsenal, they also insist that countries like North Korea and Iran abandon plans to develop nuclear weapons. The double-standard traps the world in a situation that increase tension and competition between nuclear haves and have-nots.

As world leaders continue to
wield nuclear weapons as part of their geopolitical power plays, we should resist
automatically accepting the trope that nuclear weapons are custodians of global
security. A more holistic discussion would acknowledge the many players in the
nuclear weapons enterprise, some bound to reap enormous benefits, while others
fated to lose without recompense. What would a conversation about nuclear
weapons look like if we demanded recognition for those harmed by its production
process? Or if we closely scrutinized government spending on these bombs when
the world already has thousands—14,000 spread among nine countries, to be
precise—pointed at one another? While it seems unrealistic to envision a
world free of nuclear weapons, the alternative is to tolerate a broken system
that favors the military-industrial complex and exploits communities in
exchange for a sense of protection. And if we collectively decide that we can
live with this system, and that we are comfortable using fear as our ultimate
savior, we must ask ourselves what sort of a society we are now “protecting.”

Lovely Umayam is a program manager at the Stimson Center in Washington D.C., managing policy projects that help secure civilian nuclear material and technologies. She is also the founder of Bombshelltoe, an arts collective examining the intersection of nuclear policy, arts, and community organizing.